Exploring the History of OpenAI's Board: Key Milestones and Evolution

Three members of the OpenAI board stepped down earlier this year within a few months of each other, yet the startup has not appointed replacements. One of the remaining board members, Adam D’Angelo, former CTO of Facebook and current CEO of Quora, has launched an AI chatbot platform called Poe, which leverages OpenAI's technology while also competing with its products. Additionally, two board members, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner, are affiliated with the same philanthropic organization that promotes a specific ideological agenda.

These are some of the surprising insights from a recent Substack post by John Loeber, co-founder of the digital brokerage firm Limit. Loeber examined OpenAI's tax filings and the Internet Archive to uncover details about the organization’s governance. His findings reveal a board whose composition has frequently changed, often unexpectedly, contributing to the current crisis.

In the early days of OpenAI, around December 2015, the board consisted solely of co-chairs Elon Musk and Sam Altman. By March 2017, it expanded to include four members: Musk, Altman, Chris Clark (OpenAI’s first COO), and Holden Karnofsky, founder of the effective altruism organization Open Philanthropy.

Greg Brockman, former OpenAI president, joined the board in late 2017, along with Ilya Sutskever, the organization's chief scientist. However, following Musk’s departure — reportedly due to leadership disagreements — and Clark’s unexpected exit, the board’s size shrank temporarily. It later grew again in 2018 and 2019 with the addition of D’Angelo, Google robotics director Sue Yoon (who left after just a year), LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis.

In 2021, the board welcomed House Representative Will Hurd and Helen Toner, director at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies, while Karnofsky resigned, citing a potential conflict of interest related to his wife, Daniela Amodei, a former OpenAI employee involved in launching competing AI company Anthropic.

Given Toner’s previous role as a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy, Loeber theorizes that Karnofsky may have recommended her as his successor. This year, Hoffman stepped down from the OpenAI board to mitigate potential conflicts tied to his other investments. Zilis and Hurd also resigned, the latter to concentrate on his 2024 U.S. presidential campaign.

This left a board of six: Altman, Brockman, D’Angelo, Toner, McCauley, and Sutskever. However, as of Friday, only four members remain — with Altman and Brockman departed. What does this mean for the future of OpenAI?

Loeber suggests that D’Angelo’s decision to resign was warranted, given that Poe competes directly with OpenAI’s offerings, such as the recently announced GPT Studio. Conversely, McCauley is a co-founder of the Center for the Governance of AI (GovAI), which receives partial funding from Open Philanthropy. Both she and Toner serve on GovAI’s advisory board, raising questions about their independence on the OpenAI board, especially with Anthropic also backed by Open Philanthropy. Their ideological alignment suggests they may not approach their roles with the level of independence one might expect.

In the coming days and weeks, we may uncover how these dynamics and potential conflicts have influenced OpenAI’s current challenges — if they are indeed a factor at all.